Salvia

According to ABC News Radio school friend of Loughner’s named Zach Osler claimed Loughner was big into drinking and drugs in his teenage years. One of his drugs of choice was the legal hallucinogen, salvia.

“He would say he was using it and he would talk about it and say what [it] would do to him and I was like, ‘Dude, that’s screwed up,’ ” Osler told ABC News Radio.

Youtube videos show young men under the influence of salvia in trance like states, completely unresponsive to questions, with diminished physical coordination

Salvia divinorum is also known as the Seer’s or Diviner’s Sage. It is a psychoactive plant which can induce dissociation, visions and hallucinations.

Homeopaths often take a particular interest in the characteristics of a remedy’s crude source. From that they infer similar characteristics with their subject. Salvia comes from an isolated cloud forest in Mexico, preferring cloudy and moist locations. It has hollow square stems, white flowers with violet calyx, and reproduces vegetatively, without viable seed, suggesting that it is a cultigen.

Cultivated without viable seed.

Salvia divinorum is traditionally used by Mazatec shamans to facilitate altered states of consciousness and produce visions during spiritual healing sessions. The plant is believed to be an incarnation of the Goddess, the Virgin Mary. It’s ritual use also invoking that relationship. The active psychoactive constituent is structurally unique, a diterpenoid called salvinorin, a potent k-opioid and D2 receptor agonist. It has low toxicity, and as anopioid a low addictive potential.

Here are the symptoms of Salvia divinorum intoxication. Some symptoms appear to match or are similar to those known to be shown by Loughner.

Loss of physical coordination

Uncontrollable laughter

Visual alterations or visions

Experiencing multiple realities

A contemplative sense of peace

Sense of profound understanding

Dream-like veneer over the world

Sense of total confusion or madness

Seeing or becoming part of a tunnel

Loss of sense of awareness as an individual

Experiencing a “non-Euclidean” geometry

Sense of flying, floating, twisting, or turning

Feeling of being immersed in an energy field

Feeling of being connected to a larger “whole”

Feeling of being underground or underwater

Appearing to travel to other places and/or times

Becoming inanimate objects (a wall, stairs, a couch, etc.)

Viewing patterns or shapes that are tube-like, snake-like, or worm-like

It can easily be seen how smoking Salvia ﻿divinorum﻿ — which federal drug officials warn can closely mimic psychosis — matches ﻿Loughner’s﻿ symptoms, how he saw the world, spending most of his waking hours in a dream world that he claimed he had learned to control.

I find no evidence that Saliva divinorum has been proven or even ﻿potentized﻿. However, as an opiodid the characteristics of Salvia are similar to Opium, which has been potentized and matches closely some of Loughner’s suggested symptoms, such as delusions of flying and murder, somnambulism, shamelessness and lewd, the desire to kill, all indicators of potentized Opium as the remedy.

However, one thing stands out l clear. For all the speculations I may have about one remedy or the other, the one remedy that in cross referencing now is indicated more than any other for Jared Loughner is Hyoscyamus.

BOERICKE on Hyoscyamus: “Disturbs the nervous system profoundly. It is as if some diabolical force took possession of the brain and prevented its functions. It causes a perfect picture of mania of a quarrelsome and obscene character. Inclined to be unseemly and immodest in acts, gestures and expressions. Very talkative, and persists in stripping herself, or uncovering genitals. Is jealous, afraid of being poisoned, etc. Its symptoms also point to weakness and nervous agitation; hence typhoid and other infections with coma vigil. Tremulous weakness and twitching of tendons. Subsultus tendinum. Muscular twitchings, spasmodic affections, generally with delirium. Non-inflammatory cerebral activity. Toxic gastritis.”

So without regard to intuition, (to which I will defer) the first remedy I for Jared Loughner, without dint of further repertorization, is Hyoscamus.

So if we decide this to be the key remedy, then where is it placed. What kind of relationships does it have to other remedies that may have been explored already?

Sleeplessness and nervous agitation. Dry cough in phthisis. Similar in its effects to alcohol, both recent and remote. Corresponds to the effects of strong poisons introduced into or generated within the body. Symptoms of uræmia and acute nervous exhaustion. A remedy for shock. Third and fourth dec trituration. In physiological dosage (1-200 gr) mania and chorea; insomnia. Scopola (Japanese Belladonna)-chemically identical with Hyoscine (Joyous delirium, licking of lips and smacking of mouth; sleepless; tries to get out of bed; sees cats, picks imaginary hairs, warms hands before imaginary fire, etc).

We have seen indicators in this case for Stramonium, Opium, Belladonna and Phosphorus, all top remedies for Jared. In Clarke we find a better plan by which to administer these remedies and some intersting distinctions between Hyoscyamus and Stramonium. Stram. has desire for light and company, Hyo. aversion to both. Here Clarke suggests the most relationships to Hyoscyamus a beginning, middle and end to the posology for the case.

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3 comments on “Salvia”

If indicated Nux vomica could also be helpful to clear up a bit the case. Frequently use of different drugs and alcohol needs the “toxic-cleaning effect” of Nux vomica. One dose with C30 and C200 the next day.

An interesting feature of Salvia is the feeling of being out of the body and not caring to return. The user feels that the state of disconnectedness is actually better than the daily drudge, so why would he want to come back in his body? This detachment from the world of experience “down there” is often expressed as a deisre to be disconnected forever and to wish for death.